Who Does the Social Media Marketing for Your Dental Practice?

Social media is now an established part of our culture. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and blogging have proven to be effective dental marketing channels.

But it takes time to manage the accounts and interact on a regular basis.

Dentists need to spend their time treating patients. They didn’t invest years into earning dental credentials just to post updates on Facebook every day!

We wondered how dentists who are using social media marketing are getting it done, so we asked a few questions about how dentists delegate social media marketing for their practice.

As it turns out, half of our dentists (50%) involve front desk staff in their social media marketing.

Facebook is delegated the most, followed by Pinterest, Twitter and LinkedIn.

None of our respondents involve their front desk staff in blogging for their practice.

One-quarter of our respondents consider social media skills important enough to make them a requirement for a front desk position.

Another 25% of dentists think it would be nice for front desk personnel to have social media skills, but they don’t ask about them in interviews, and they’re not job requirements.

One Ohio prosthodontist thinks social media marketing is important enough to go beyond delegating it to the front desk: “Hiring an in-office Marketing Coordinator for medium and large offices is a must these days! We hired one 3 months ago and it has been GREAT! The front desk and other employees are now able to completely focus on their jobs and the marketing coordinator develops and maintains our office’s social media marketing and most of our other forms of marketing.”

The lesson here is that social media can be a valuable dental marketing tool. However, it requires planning and resources to be successful.

For small practices with front desk staff that already handles multiple tasks, this can be a challenge. But the payoffs in terms of new patients can be worth the effort.

How can small dental practices manage social media marketing?

Current and potential patients are already gathering on these social media platforms, and sharing ideas, opinions, photos and videos.

Dental practices that successfully tap into this public interchange can raise their visibility, attract new patients and find out about new trends.

Rather than think of social media as another advertising channel, use it for visibility — involve your practice in local community conversations.

Choose a few local organizations, restaurants or small businesses you like, then post comments or questions about their upcoming events. Congratulate neighbors on their successes, contribute an inspiring quote, or share an adorable picture — with permission, of course!

Contrary to what many social media ‘experts’ preach, you don’t have to update your accounts every day – or even every week.

If you can only manage a monthly update, that’s okay. People will understand that you’re busy taking care of your patients’ teeth!

The material on this website is offered in conjunction with MasterPlan
Alliance.

Copyright 2017 Du Molin & Du Molin, Inc.
All rights reserved. If you would like to use material from this site, our reports, articles, training
programsor tutorials for use in any printed or electronic media, please ask permission first by email.